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Monday, November 04, 2013

Dearest girls,
tomorrow you will be three. You have been two for one day less than a
year and let me tell you, what a year it's been.

We spent your second
birthday travelling back to our funny little steading house in
Evanton. We were renting it before we moved to London. Three weeks
after your second birthday we moved. Your daddy drove us to the
airport, your great-granny met us there, together they put us on the
plane to London, your great-granny cried. There was a hairy moment as we were climbing the steps
to the plane door, Ella heard the engine and froze, Ammie tried to
keep climbing but the steps were too tall for her little legs, and as
we were the first to board every single passenger on the flight stood on the steps and the runway, waiting behind us while I tried to persuade Ella to keep walking and
help Ammie up off her knees. Eventually we were in our seats and I
started unpacking my survival kit that I had been putting together in
a desperate attempt to get through a flight by myself with two two
year olds. You were perfect. You spent the whole journey playing,
ripping up the wax from your tiny cheeses and dividing it between the
plastic cups the air steward had given you. You weren't quiet but
then I've never expected children to be quiet. Fuck them if they
don't like your noise, you be heard. When we got to Gatwick you ran
off down the glass tunnel over the baggage reclaim and every time
I've gone down that tunnel since I've seen Ella in her tiny teal
woollen coat, greeting her life in London with toddler sized glee.
Then you both got tired and grumpy and mummy needed coffeeand I'm almost certain that you cried and grizzled
all the way into London on the train until you eventually fell asleep in your
pushchair, for the first time in months. That night you slept
sprawled on a blanket on the floor, like tiny romper-clad drunks. We had
moved to London.

This year has been
hard, I won't deny it. That thing people say about terrible twos?
Like most things people say it has some truth in it. There were tears
and screaming and collapsing on the floor, from all of us. Two is
hard, it's hard for parents and it was really hard for you. You were
learning but not fast enough to give you the freedom and
understanding that you wanted. You so desperately wanted to do things
but you could not possibly understand why you weren't allowed and
when you weren't allowed you were furious. You were getting bored but
you were also so tired, your growth spurts exhausting you so that you
still needed a good big nap in the middle of the day. You were
curious and grumpy and completely unreasonable. Punishing us when we
left you, treating us with disdain whenever one of your grannies was
around, wilfully ignoring everything we said and telling us that were
naughty, bad, silly, smelly. It sounds funny now but the vehemence
with which you threw those words at us cut us to the bone. But oh
the sweetness, the sweetness of two made all of it worthwhile.
'Mummy, are you sad?' 'Mummy, do you need a hug?', your awareness
that other people have feelings was a milestone, your willingness to
give affection and your desire to comfort others came just at the
right time, just when it seemed that you were really trying to kill
us with your demands and tantrums. And you started to
seem to like each other, which I won't deny was a relief. When you
didn't think we were looking you started playing together, inventing
games and sharing and cooperating, then you realised we were watching
and went back to fighting and whinging and more often than seemed
necessary biting, scratching and gouging. Ella learned that she was
faster and taller, Ammie that she was stronger and that her rage
burned brighter. Ella, when she could, stole Ammie's things, not
because she wanted them but because she wanted to hide them from her,
knowing that it would make her incandescent with rage. Ammie in
return would bite, push, scratch and yell.

Ammie, over the
last few months you've worked so hard to learn some self-control and
I am so proud of you for it. I know how hard you struggle, how strong
your emotions are, that they rise like a flood tide through you and
you can not see anything but injustice, feel anything but tage and
despair. The day when instead of biting Ella, you clenched her
fists and yelled 'ARGHHHHH BITE YOU' at her I was so proud of you
that my heart ached. I know how hard it was for you not to just clamp
your teeth around her arm and use your tiny powerful jaw to express
all the fury was coursing through you. Emotions are hard, I struggle
with that too. So often I just want to scream and yell and throw
myself on the ground crying. So often these days it's only wanting to
set you a good example that stops me. I hope one day you will
understand that we will always have at least that in common.
Alongside your rage comes the greatest, warmest love in the world. As
intensely as you feel anger and desperation you feel love and
affection and joy. Ammie, you give the greatest hugs that there ever
was. You wrap your little strong arms around my neck and you squeeze
me so tightly that it hurts. Then you kiss me, little sloppy open
mouthed kisses that leave my face wet. Anyone who gets one of your
'great big hugs' is very luck. I love the strength and the power in
you. I love your rage and your fury and your love and your fire. You
are always warm, you don't get cold hands, your limbs are soft and
kneadable like warm bread dough and when you curl in my lap to read
a book or watch tv, your wild curls tickling my chin, you are my hot
water bottle. You look more and more like your daddy and I see his
concentration and determination glowering from your brow when you are
confronted with something that doesn't make sense or just something
really quire serious that demands a lot of respect, like milk.

Ella, your independence
and your brightness astound me daily. You are always learning, always
listening. Your sense of humour is more sophisticated than most of
the adults I know. You do voices and accents, you play with language
and you take delight in making us laugh. You will not perform on
demand though, your urge to do your own thing outweighs your urge to
entertain. Your urge to do your own thing, never to give in,
outweighs everything. On your more difficult days I call it
stubbornness, your daddy; sheer bloody mindedness. You would rather
miss out on something you really really want than give in and do
something someone else has told you to. You remind me so much of me
that it scares me. One day I will tell you the stories about the
Easter chick and the back seat of the bus and I hope that you will
believe that we are made from something similar. I am learning to
only pick the really important battles with you but I think that it
will be a long road. A while back you went through an extreme
independent phase. Maybe once a week you would agree to a hug, never
a kiss, and while your sister was revelling in being 'a little baby'
you were quite determined that you were 'a big boy', telling us so
many times a day, dressing only in trousers, only in blue and getting
really very cross if anyone suggested
that you were either a baby or a girl. Then, just as suddenly as it
arrived, it passed and now you are neither girl nor boy but 'a baby
bunny'. You will let us hug and kiss you again and I am so glad. I
love to feel your long arms and legs wrapped around me, to stroke
your delicate shoulder blades and feel your whispy fine hair tickle
my nose. I love to feel that for a little while longer you are my
baby, because I can see you striding off into the world on those
wonderfully long legs any day now and while I know great things wait
for you out there, I don't want to let you go.

Both
of you have the most wonderful language skills and pretty much daily
something you say makes us laugh. You have parents who love language
and who will rarely tell you that you'rve got a word wrong, often
preferring your version anyway. As such you will likely go to nursery
and be mocked mercilessly. I'm sorry about that. Even if being
laughed at is too much for your lexicon to survive, it's very
unlikely that your daddy and I will drop the wonderful things you
said in that year you were two from ours. Our clothes will never
again be too small or too big but always 'too fit'. Going out for
dinner will always be 'fahncy', not fancy. It's unlikely that either
of us will evera sk to be excused but always 'please maybe squoozed'
and on cold mornings I will always brew my coffee in a chocolatey
ear.

My
girls, tomorrow you will be three and it seems so sudden. I remember
this night, three years ago, as clearly as any night. In fact
infinitely more clearly than any of the nights since, because you two
have royally scrambled my brain. Early fireworks popping and whizzing
as I lay quietly in the darkness waiting for you to arrive. Tomorrow
we will take you to see your first firework display, you'll probably
hate it and complain of the cold and the darkness and the noise
because as much I would love to imagine otherwise, I'm almost certain
that the irascibility of two does not stop with three. In fact I've
heard it gets worse. Oh well. Along with everything that might get
worse with this coming year I am absolutely, entirely certain that
you're going to keep getting better too. That your love and your
sense of humour and your curiosity and your conversation and your
friendship with each other is going to grow and grow and grow and
that your daddy and I will continue to think that you are two of the
best people to ever walk this earth. Happy birthday baby girls.